


Late Nights

by wickedspeed



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 16:30:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8020969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedspeed/pseuds/wickedspeed
Summary: Erin and Holtzmann are both known to work late, but for rather different reasons as it turns out





	Late Nights

It was the sound of crashing metal, followed by a swear and laughter that jerked Erin from her sleep. It took the redhead a moment to realize that she was not in her bed at home, but rather still sitting at her desk in the firehouse, her computer open in front of her.

“Our most recent capture, a class IV entityyyyyyyyyyyy–” Erin frowned upon seeing the repeating letter, realizing she had fallen asleep on her keyboard. “Shit, I thought I dreamed that,” she muttered, beginning to delete the excess letters.

Another crash reminded Erin what had awoken her in the first place; was Holtzmann still here? The redhead checked her watch: 3 A.M.

“I know why I’m here; why are you still here?” she muttered before she stood, heading up to the second floor. She was met with the organized mess that was Holtzmann’s lab. It was rare that any of them ever ventured to the second floor, seeing as Holtz had taken it over with her odds and ends and highly unstable experiments, and Erin couldn’t recall ever seeing so many empty energy drink cans in one place before.

“Holtz? Are you up here?” Erin called, stepping over a tangled mess of cords as she made her way (perhaps foolishly) deeper into the lab.

“What up?” Holtz said, suddenly appearing from behind a tall cylinder, rolling by on her wheeled chair.

“I thought you went home.”

“You thought incorrectly.” Holtz had reached another table and she spun her chair around, beginning to tinker with the gun on the table. “Check it out; I modified this gun to shoot a net that will trap a ghost.”

“Isn’t that what the ghost trap is for?” Erin asked as she approached.

“Well, yeah, the net is only temporary. You know, just to deal with multiple beasties.”

“Ah.” It was silent as Erin watched the blonde continue to tinker with the gun. She’d always enjoyed watching Holtz work; it was the blonde’s true medium. However, tonight Holtz had pushed up her yellow-tinted glasses and Erin could see the dark circles under her eyes. While these were not uncommon for the engineer, Holtz looked truly exhausted tonight, and Erin could only suspect that she was running fumes (and more than one energy drink).

“When was the last time you slept?” Erin asked.

Holtz shrugged. “Yesterday? A few days ago? Who can keep track.”

“You should be keeping track.”

“I’ll keep a dream journal for you then.”

Erin rolled her eyes and moved away a bit, her gaze falling on an interesting looking contraption on another table, which she picked up. “You really should take this more seriously Holtz–”

“NO!”

Startled, Erin dropped the invention, which began beeping in a very unfriendly way. Holtz was suddenly at her side, kicking the invention across the room before grabbing Erin and pulling her to the floor behind a table mere seconds before the redhead heard an explosion, followed by a sort of sucking sound. A minute or so passed before Holtzmann released her, and Erin peered out from behind the table hesitantly.

“What was that?”

“An untested void gun,” Holtzmann replied, getting to her feet.

“Void gun?”

“For sucking ghosts into voids,” the blonde said, as if that explained everything. “It rips open a void and, well… I don’t know where they end up. I’m still working on it.” She offered Erin a hand, which the redhead took. Upon getting to her feet, she noticed that one entire corner of the lab was empty.

“Oh… sorry.”

Holtzmann shrugged, beginning to tinker again. “Just don’t touch anything else, yeah?”

It came off a bit cold, and stung more than Erin had anticipated. “I already apologized, we can replace whatever you lost–”

“Yeah, well, you’re not so easy to replace, are you?”

Erin understood then. Holtzmann rarely ever spoke about “the nuclear incident”, as Abby called it; all the redhead knew was that every Sunday, Holtzmann would disappear for a few hours and would return looking a bit deflated.

“Is that why you can’t sleep?” Erin asked softly.

“Nightmares. You know,” Holtz replied, raising her screwdriver and making a circling motion by her head.

“Yeah…”

Silence.

“They still won’t let me see him. Like I’m going to bring in a nuclear reactor strapped to my back as an apology,” the blonde said, not looking up.

“Well, I mean… you kind of strapped a nuclear reactor to the roof of our car…”

Holtz gave Erin a flat look.

“Just saying.”

“Those are negative-charge containment canisters.”

Erin nodded, and Holtzmann turned back to her tinkering.

“Well, if you’re going to stay here, at least let me keep you company,” Erin said.

A smile played across Holtz’s features at that. “If you can find a free chair, you can stay.”

“Deal.”


End file.
